


don't want your shining eyes

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassination, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Skinny Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He learns the year - 2014 - and he learns the where - outside of Washington DC right now, though they woke him in New York - and finally the who - SHIELD. Someone tries to explain that they're on his side, they're his old friends, the SSR.</p><p>It almost makes him laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't want your shining eyes

They underestimate him at first, even with all the intel they have, they still underestimate him. He usually counts on that to get in and out of places but he gave himself away too soon in his desperation. They have him in a cell now, still not entirely sure what he's capable of but taking better precautions now. His limbs are all still free so he's not too worried. Picking up information has been harder, no one is sure what to say around him, if he's insane or will snap if they say the wrong thing. He learns the year - 2014 - and he learns the where - outside of Washington DC right now, though they woke him in New York - and finally the who - _SHIELD_. Someone tries to explain that they're on his side, they're his old friends, the SSR.

It almost makes him laugh.

Except for Peggy the SSR were liars and cheats, but he keeps that to himself. If they want to see only the perfections, the roughly shined exterior without any of his bullet holes or scars then they're free to do so. Let them look, he’ll be patient. He has more to learn before he can risk making any moves.

He's almost grateful for the transfer to DC, it puts him away from New York, from old memories that were hard enough to let go in Europe, he doesn't know how he would manage so close to where they came from.

Being away lets him focus. He's in the future, his future, though now he has to start thinking of it as his present. No one really knows who he is except an experiment that could never be repeated. A fluke. Their files don't seem to include his psych evaluation, the one that says survivor in bold print at the bottom. He saw the doctor write it himself so he knows it's there. It was the one thing about him they agreed on.

He fists his hand, watching the skin stretch over bone. Loosen and repeat. He tries not to think about back then for too long, he tries not to think of who must no longer be around because the hurt is too deep and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to climb out of it.

Sometimes though, when the monotony of the cell starts to wear on the fringes of his sanity - whatever he has left after Europe and experiments and the long long fall into ice - he picks and scrapes. Remembers humid afternoons struggling to find work, and freezing cold nights outside without a shirt on because there was no time when the cops showed up. He remembers a fire in the forest of France, barely more than embers but enough for the Commandos to see each other by.

He knows once at some point he loses it after poking for too long. Screams until his voice is raw, slamming his fist into the reinforced concrete wall until there's a hole the size of his fist and blood on his knuckles because it shouldn't have been him, it should never have been him. He should not have been the one to survive still young and somehow healthy and alive. He doesn't deserve this.

They gas the cell.

He only knows because he wakes up with a pounding headache.

It's after an episode, with his eyes closed against the ache, shifting from unconsciousness to awareness, that he hears the door open. There's a click that he would recognize anywhere, a safety being clicked off and he almost sobs in relief. If this is to be his future, these four grey walls, then he'd rather be put down like a dog. They can study his body, learn what they want freely and he can slip away to nothingness. He stopped believing in his parents god a long long time ago. There is no gracious god for orphans. Emptiness would be preferable, because he knows there's no heaven after what he's done. Despite killing for a good cause, killing men who he knew were bad, who did awful things, crimes for which there is no jail and only death, there is no heaven.

Not when better men are dead and he is left here on his knees but breathing, stale filtered air filling his lungs.

The shot never comes, though.

-

"We have other aces up our sleeves." Fury's tone is almost casual and Bucky wants to scream. He heard similar words from Phillips years ago when he was explaining the purpose of the Howling Commandos and the garish costume they held out to him.

"What the hell does that mean?" Tony asks.

"It means he has other experiments and fucking victims hidden in dank cells," Bucky snarls, shoving away from the table. He doesn't leave the room, as much as he wants to. There's no where to go.

"If you won't do your job, Sergeant Barnes-"

"My job?" He laughs, feeling slightly hysterical. "My job? Was to try and lead a ragtag team of morons through Europe to take down a crazed dictator with illusions of grandeur and a better race. My job was to be a fucking _distraction_."

Fury smiles, that same magnanimous smile that says he knows too much and makes Bucky's skin crawl. "Same thing, only you're doing it here."

Bruce's eyes dart back and forth, he seems to be picking up on things that neither Fury nor Bucky are saying. Bucky can't decide if that's a good thing or not. The man seems nice enough, and his intelligence isn't threatening in a way that Tony's is or Howard's was. "No. No, it's not the fucking same thing-"

"I need someone to make a big fucking fuss so my agents can get a job done," Fury sighs in exasperation. "Who better than you all in spangly costumes?"

They'd barely worked together to defeat Loki, Bucky had only stood up with them because he knows Steve would have given him a stinkeye if he'd been around. Except Steve isn't, he's lost, body never recovered after apparently crashing a plane into the Arctic. Bucky hadn't cried when he'd found out; he wanted to, but the hurt was so deep that nothing seemed to come out.

The shield sits on the table now in front of the seat he'd just vacated, the star like one big eye looking at him accusingly.

"You want to use us to, what, take out a world leader? Yea, that doesn't feel kosher." Tony grimaces, looking like he might actually leave the room.

"No, I want to use you to take out a nasty arms dealer." He pulls up a screen for them, Bucky doesn't recognize the guy, doesn't know his name or if he's being played or not so he looks at Bruce and Clint so far sitting quiet. Natasha is there too, but Clint's face is easier to read. They all seem to know the target though and even Tony whistles through his teeth.

"Met him once," Tony says almost thoughtfully. "At some big gun show in Dubai. Gorgeous wife."

"Who's the agent?" Clint asks. "Even distracted he's got better security than the president."

"New. It's sort of a test for him."

Even Natasha looks confused which makes something twist painfully in Bucky's stomach. It's too familiar, it's Phillips all over again, this first mission is an experiment Sergeant.

"A test? You mean ritual slaughter?" Clint asks. "Who the hell is so good that this guy is a test?"

"Classified," Fury answers, tone clearly saying that the issue is closed.

"I won't," Bucky says, backing further away from the target and the shield and all of it. He should never have agreed in the first place, gone on and tried to live a different life. Let Steve and his memory lay to rest.

Fury stares at him, expression neutral but assessing. Weighing his options. Bucky's never felt so wanted before and it makes him sick. This isn't Steve, limbs folded up neatly on the end of Bucky's bunk asking him to do this for him, to give the failed experiment a purpose. "I need you on this, Sergeant," Fury says with all the right inflections but Bucky's grown up around liars and conmen.

"If James doesn't want to be part of this, he shouldn't be forced," Bruce says softly, with steel under his voice and Bucky decides he really does like the man. Another lifetime maybe they could have been friends. He almost laughs, because this is another lifetime. His second chance and he's fucking it up.

"The agent is going in either way. His chances will be greatly improved with Captain America drawing everyone's eyes."

It's a punch in the gut and Fury knows it. He knows Bucky would never say no to being someone's back up. It makes him want to scream.

-

He feels the weight of the gun in his hand, similar to what he's used to but different. Heavier, more tech built into the gun, but the principles never change and his hand stays steady as he takes aim through the scope. He remembers the Johnson rifle he used to carry, worn in all the right places to fit his grip. He doesn't think a gun like this will ever show signs of outward wear, too much metal and plastic.

A feeling of nausea rises up in his stomach as he fixes his aim on the target, but he pushes it back. He's done this countless times now. Ready, aim, fire.

Bang.

It's better than having to go in close, getting blood on his hands, burning into his skin. Below him he can hear a fight going on, making the man's guards antsy but also keeping him contained. He's used to the sounds of battle in the background, they're easy to tune out. The familiarity makes it almost too easy, like no time has passed at all. He grins when he thinks of the USO tour that came through Italy, its slogan with something about putting a bullet in your guy's gun.

Bang.

He pulls the trigger and sees the man stumble, a hole in his cheek but it's not enough. He's bleeding but not dying. Mission fail. The guards are already yelling and trying to figure out where he is so he makes quick work of three of them, this time making sure they go down. But the target is blocked and out of sight. He has to go in.

He leaves the rifle where it is, and follows the route he had already mapped just in case, it's reckless and stupid but he doesn't have any reason to play it safe anymore. No one buying bonds to pay for his bullets. But he's landed on top of moving trains before, so moving between two buildings is almost easy. It takes three minutes with no interference and he has a knife in hand when he drops into the room the mark is in.

They underestimate him, small and skinny and barely five foot five. He takes advantage and moves first, gutting two more of the guards before there's any response, leaving only two to see to their boss. One takes a shot at him but he's faster and gets in to knock the gun away, shoving his knife up through his chin. He leaves it there and grabs the dead man's handgun to take out the last guard.

The mark has a shirt pressed to the hole in his face, trying to slow the bleeding.

He kicks him in the head, the force making his neck twist at an unnatural angle and the mark slumps down dead. He's barely breathing hard. It's a bit of a challenge to get his knife back but once it's done and clean, he strips out of his gloves, stained red now. Everything is stained red.

"Sorry," he whispers. Not sure if he's apologizing to himself or to the men who deserved this second chance more than a boy who knows nothing but murder anymore.

He makes his way carefully out of the building, looking for his extraction. The battle is still going on, it must be bigger than originally planned. Something catches his eye, a flash of red, white and blue and his limbs freeze. His extraction is in the opposite direction, but one foot in front of the other and he finds himself moving closer. There is someone in the Captain America uniform and all he can think is that they don't belong.

-

Bucky lays out the last of the AIM agents who oh so conveniently decided to attack downtown Chicago right when SHIELD's agent was going to make his move. He feels dirty for being pawn to this game, it makes him hit a little harder than necessary.

He's just shifting the shield back onto his arm when he hears what sounds like a strangled yell and something small and fast is charging at him. He barely gets the shield up in time to block the first first and he goes flying back into a car. The impact leaves him stunned and slow and whoever is attacking him takes advantage, grabbing hold of the edge of the shield and pulling. Hard enough that Bucky feels like his arm might dislocate. They're so fixated on the shield he can kick out hard and catches them in the stomach.

They roll away, back to Bucky and he quickly gets to his feet, bracing himself for the next onslaught. Whoever this is, the attack feels personal, against him maybe or against the uniform. There's no time to assess his attacker because they're launching at him again, raining blows onto the shield, hard enough that he can feel the vibrations through his arm. Somewhere over the chaos of the last battle, he can hear the Avengers. Clint is demanding to know if he should take a shot and out of the corner of his eye Natasha is making her approach.

Bucky shifts his weight onto his left leg, making it easier to kick out again but this time the guy sees it and moves his own leg to block, taking the full force of Bucky's kick with barely a flinch.

He needs to get control of this fight, he needs to stop acting defensively, but the guy is too fast. Faster than any enhancement he might have from Zola's twisted experiments. Fast like Steve was after the serum. Bucky pushes forward with the shield and it's unexpected enough to send the guy back a few steps. Bucky's already moving, chasing him down, lashing out with the shield again to catch him across the face.

He doesn't see the knife in time and it slices a clean line over his right arm, cutting into flesh. In his shock the shield is finally ripped away from him. The guy snarls low and angry. "It's not yours." The shield is thrown aside, Bucky can hear it hit the pavement with a loud clatter, but he's focused on his attacker. There's finally nothing between them and Bucky can see his face.

"Oh god."

The knife shifts in his grip and Bucky barely throws up his metal arm in time. He can hear it screech against the metal, catching in a joint.

"Steve!" His voice cracks in disbelief but Steve doesn't seem to be listening.

"It's not yours, take it _off_."

Bucky can't hold him back with one arm for that long, but he has to hope it's long enough that he can get the cowl off before he dies. "Steve, Steve, listen to me, please." He fumbles with the cowl, unable to find the catch for long seconds, able to hear nothing else but the creak of metal as Steve pushes and pushes. Nothing but broken emotions. Finally he gets it off. "Steve. It's me."

-

It doesn't sink in for a long second, it doesn't seem possible, but it's Bucky in front of him. It's Bucky who he attacked. It's _Bucky_.

He stumbles backwards, tripping over his own feet as if he's just that stupid kid in Brooklyn too sick and too stubborn for his own good. The kid who couldn't dance, who could barely throw a punch. Back before Erskine and his serum that didn't make him big like everyone expected, but instead kept him small but impossibly strong and fast.

"Oh god."

Bucky holds up both of his hands as if Steve is a feral animal and it makes him sick to realize that right now he is. Nothing but instinct and violence. His humanity lost somewhere in a grey, concrete cell or maybe the ice of the Arctic Ocean. Or maybe on that freezing cold day in Austria when he watched red, white and blue plummet from a train.

"No," he whispers because Bucky Barnes died and Steve watched it happen, watches it every night when he tries to sleep.

"Yea, buddy, surprise." Bucky crouches, putting them at the same height and Steve realizes he must have fallen to his knees. "I didn't- oh fuck, you're the agent, aren't you." His hands shake when they reach for Steve and he wants to tell him to stop, not touch him, he's nothing but blood and death anymore, but the words stick in his throat. Bucky's hands feel odd on his skin, hot versus cold. "Steve."

"They'll find me again."

Bucky's hands tighten in Steve's dark blue jacket, yanking him closer and Steve could easily stop him, but he falls forward, falls into Bucky. "I'm so sorry, so fucking sorry. I should have known, I should have found you."

"It's ok," he mumbles into Bucky's shoulder. "You couldn't. I couldn't." He pulls back, his chest suddenly feeling lighter. Bucky is alive, he has the second chance he deserves. "You better be doing what you love."

"Steve?"

He smiles tightly, not used to the expression anymore. He doesn't know how long he was in that cell, months or days or only hours, but they let him think Bucky was dead for that entire time. "You're alive, so it's ok."

Bucky's eyes widen and he gets into Steve's space, faster than he remembers him being. "No, come back with me. I won't fucking let them touch you again." He shies away from Bucky's touch, he wants it, but he's not Steve yet. He's still the man in that cell with blood on his hands.

"It's too late."

-

Bucky watches Steve twitch and fall as a taser hits him. He pulls his arm back to throw the shield at the agent who pulled the trigger, but someone catches him. "Not here," Tony hisses.

-

He wakes up back in his cell of grey. Everything feels vaguely like a dream. Like his life must now change in some deep fundamental way that grey walls can no longer contain. Bucky is _alive_. He doesn't care how. Part of him wants to retreat, insist it was only a dream, a vivid hallucination brought on by seeing that uniform again. The idea that anyone else could wear it makes him nauseous, it belonged to Bucky. He was Steve's star that Steve clung to when he stopped being a boy from Brooklyn, when he became a soldier, a freak of science.

The idea that someone else could be that star terrifies him, leaves him feeling without an anchor. Lost.

He yells but the concrete only swallows the sound up. As if it never happened. As if he had never left to begin with. Except he looks at his hands and there is still blood under his nails.

He throws a punch at the wall, but instead of concrete shattering and breaking, it's metal that bends and folds. Another punch and his knuckles turn red and bleed. Another and he breaks through to something else, wiring. He never realized before how close his escape could be. For a second he thinks about pulling back, maybe the world is better with him here, locked up like an animal. No identity, no real existence. He doesn't know what the world is really like anymore, maybe he can do something good with SHIELD to be unleashed where he's needed.

Steve pulls back his fist one more time.

-

"Where the fuck is he?" He storms into Fury's office, using his metal fist to break through the locks. Hill is reaching for her service weapon, but he stops her with a cold look. Right now not even a bullet will stop him unless she aims very carefully.

"Barnes-"

"The next words out of your mouth had better not be 'it was for national security' or some other bullshit excuse." Bucky rounds on Fury, already plotting out the fastest way cross the desk to get his hands on Fury's throat. He stalks forward slowly as the silence stretches out. "You have Steve Rogers alive in the bowels of this fucking Helicarrier and never bothered to mention it, so I want a real fucking answer, Fury."

Fury's eye narrows but otherwise he doesn't flinch. "When we found him he was barely Steve Rogers. Was barely anybody. Scientists had some fancy word for it, but basically he repressed who he was while he healed from the trauma of crashing a plane into the Arctic." Bucky leans heavily on the desk. Still only excuses, no explanation for why no one told him and Fury knows that's what Bucky's after. He's only stalling. "We needed him, someone with his skills and abilities to put a bullet in a bad man's head. Letting you two buddy it up before that happened would only complicate matters."

"It'd _complicate_ matters to keep us separate," Bucky repeats carefully, looking back and forth between the two of them. Fury relies on his eye patch too much for his poker face, he has a slight tell around his mouth. "He's uncontrollable, isn't he? Anxious? Violent? Terrified?" That makes Fury sit up a little straighter. "He's my best friend, Fury. Why don't you add that to your equations." He stalks back out, giving up on a getting the answers he wants out of the two of them. That makes his next stop Tony, as much as he doesn't like it. The others need to be informed because he can't search this ship on his own.

He needs to find Steve, his own pride has to be second.

-

 

He wakes up and the cell is not grey or concrete. It's clear and circular and the glass holds when he throws his full strength against it. He paces around the edge, spying out gaps but the cell is well done, he would need time he likely doesn't have. He wonders if this is their biggest mistake, putting him here and letting him wake up. But now he knows it was real.

He almost let himself forget before, but he resolves that won't happen.

He doesn't hear the door open, doesn't hear anything until there's a sudden crackle of static as speakers come on. He twists until he can see the man, the same one who gave him his orders. He stalks into the middle of the cell, neutral ground, neither cowering nor attacking. Forcing the other man to make the first move.

"That was a good job today. Not clean, but very good. Didn't expect you to take down his whole team with him." He moves to stand a foot from the glass, watching Steve. "Every bit what your file says."

"My file doesn't say everything." His voice is still scratchy from disuse but it's starting to feel more like his own.

"Of course it doesn't." There's amusement in his voice. "I want you to continue running ops for me, the longer you behave the more likely I can get you out of here."

It sounds like a good trade on the surface. His most marketable skill in exchange for his freedom, but he can see the world again and he's no longer taking anything at face value. "You'll never let me out," he says calmly.

"Now now, I am a man of my word. I promise you out, you'll get out."

"To where? SHIELD HQ? The inside of where we are now?" He tilts his head to the side, morbidly curious about what the answer will be.

The man's mouth twists into a dry smile. "You're clever." He shrugs, if the man has seen his file than he knows the SSR taught him tactics alongside Bucky. What they hadn't already picked up from common sense or had been forced to learn in the field. "You know I can't let you out any further. You have no identity, ID, social security number, no money."

He paces slowly forward, finally advancing on the glass until it's within arm's reach. "I have an identity." His hands fist and this time when he punches the glass, cracks form. Small and almost invisible but that's how the end of anything always starts.

The man's eyes narrow. "I ain't the one who turned you into an assassin."

"No, somehow no one is to blame for that." He turns away and moves back to the center of the cell. Keeping his back to the man, he sits down and squeezes his eyes shut, seeing Bucky's anguished, broken joy against his eyelids. He doesn't hear the man leave, the speakers have been turned off leaving him cut off once again.

-

"Ok, so you became Captain America so your childhood best friend could behind the scenes murder Nazis?"

Bucky sighs and runs his hands through his hair again so he doesn't strangle someone. "The Commandos weren't just there for show either. We were still an elite military unit who went behind enemy lines to attack strategic locations."

"Well if that doesn't sound like a PR line," Tony mumbles, focused on something on his computer. Bucky's been waiting for Fury to come marching in, announcing that their search was at an end. Every noise from the hall makes his shoulders twitch.

"Fury says he's not your friend anymore," Natasha says. She's watching what Tony's doing, probably making sure he doesn't get into anything too sensitive.

"Bullshit."

"Yea, I've gotta side with Barnes on this one," Clint says apologetically. They stare each other down and it ends with Natasha giving a small shrug. Bucky's too drained to figure out what any of it could mean.

"This is taking too long." He jumps from his seat. "He has to be on the Helicarrier, I'm going to find him." He leaves without waiting for an answer. He memorized the layout of the Helicarrier awhile ago, but had thought that searching the computers would go faster than searching on foot.

There are two models, they're on a newer one enhanced for the Avengers' presence, which means enhanced cells and containment for the Hulk, Thor and Iron Man if any of them decided to go rogue. Captain America isn't seen to be as much of a threat. Steve Rogers though would be. A standard cell likely wouldn't hold him if he was determined to get out and Bucky just has to hope that Natasha is wrong. That he's still Steve and he wants to get out as badly as Bucky wants to find him.

"I'll radio if I find anything," Tony says.

Bucky looks to Bruce who gives a small nod, he'll make sure nothing happens to Tony.

That gives him a starting point and with a standard issue SHIELD jacket over his uniform, no one gives him a second glance as he makes his way down through the levels. His security clearance likely isn't high enough to get in, but Johnson's is and Tony happily supplied the agent's information to all of the team a few months back. High enough to get in almost anywhere, but not too high to attract too much attention when used. Standing there and waiting for the door to open though feels like it takes forever. He's steeling himself to find nothing but an empty room when it finally slides open.

Bucky's not used to being lucky, but there Steve is, looking impossibly small in a container meant to hold the Hulk.

His eyes are closed and there's no reaction, but Bucky doesn't give up, he makes his way to the control panel to turn on the speakers. Steve's eyes stay closed, but he sits a little straighter.

"Steve." His eyes snap open. Bucky makes his way to the glass and presses his hand flat against the surface. "Hi." His voice cracks but he can't make himself care.

"You're real?" Steve sounds so worried as he says it that Bucky wants to scream. Except he knows he has the same nagging fear that is all some fucked up illusion.

He rests his head on the glass and takes a sharp breath before he does something awful like cry. "Yea, yea I'm real. And you?"

Steve pushes himself up to his feet and moves to the glass, holding out his hand on the opposite side of Bucky's. Bucky's always loved his hands, once only callused from pencils though those days are old and faded. His fingers are still long and graceful. "You shouldn't touch me, I'm dirty."

Bucky thinks he might actually cry. It's all shit Bucky heard before, seventy years ago out behind the medical tent while Steve tried to explain what had been done to him. "No, you're not. I'm here to get your ass out. They're not going to use you again."

Steve frowns. "I'm dangerous."

"Never to me. Never on purpose. Can count the accidents on one hand. You really want to sit in this fucking cage?"

Steve shakes his head hard and his own vehemence seems to surprise him. Bucky hates himself for believing so readily that Steve was never found, would never be found. If Bucky was, then it made sense Steve had been too, but he had allowed himself to wallow in his grief instead. Believing all the sad, sorry eyes. "I need to do something first, though. To be Steve again."

Steve's eyes dart to something over his shoulder and Bucky knows he's been found. "We'll get you out of here," he hisses before the hands pull him away.

-

He starts wishing while stuck in that glass cell, so close to the outside, able to see and interact. No longer just the emptiness of the concrete walls where he forgot what and who he was. Becoming just as empty and drab as the walls.

He wishes he was dead sometimes. Truly dead. So Bucky wouldn't have to go through this, could let go of him and get to be Bucky Barnes.

He wishes he was free, outside.

He wishes his brain could be shut off, his body could be free to be SHIELD's tool without thought or guilt or emotion. It's easy to clean off a machine, make it as shiny and new as the first use.

-

The call comes from Sharon, Bucky's only friend inside SHIELD. He thinks she helps him out of some moral obligation because he knew Peggy and Gabe. Whatever the reason, she helps him and he's grateful for that. "Your friend got out on his own when they were transferring him from the Helicarrier to a cell in SHIELD. Took out five agents with his hands cuffed behind his back. He'll need to disappear to keep from being the next big manhunt." Sharon pauses and it echoes ominously in Bucky's ear. "They might have been trying out some new tech on him. It erases short term memories, the idea is it makes for agents who won't suffer from PTSD."

"Sounds like lobotomies."

"It's not much better."

The line goes dead without any further information. Tony's become his second go to as much as he hates it, part of him blames Howard and by extension Tony for all the shit that has happened to Steve. Tony's attitude doesn't help, but Bucky knows he has to play nice if he wants Tony's cooperation. Bucky knows how to play nice, he's been doing it all his life while Steve went out to pick fights.

Tony manages to scrounge up video footage of the incident. They watch together, along with Clint, Natasha and Bruce, as the cell Steve is in is flooded with a knockout gas. Six agents go in with two more as back ups outside the cell. A collar is fitted around Steve's neck and his arms are yanked roughly behind his back. Straps attached to the collar are secured around his upper arms, right below his elbows and around his wrists. They get him to his feet, supporting his weight until he starts to wake up. They don't seem to notice at first but Bucky sees it right away in the way his hands start to move, just slightly testing his restraints. The video moves along, following them through a maze of hallways until they leave the Helicarrier. All eight guards are still with him, but only two are holding him now. Then he moves.

It's almost like a dance, the way he twists, throwing the two guards holding him into each other. Three others are disabled with his feet and then he's off running, launching himself out of a window and out of range. According to a brief report, the restraints were found two blocks away, torn open.

Bucky feels both relief and nausea. It's not like Steve to run from a fight, especially if he's outmatched. For him to flee means something bigger is going on.

There are no clues as to where Steve might have gone, if he even remembers seeing Bucky on the city street anymore. Jarvis offers to run a program to try to find him on CCTV cameras and even though Bucky says yes and please, he doubts there's any way that even Tony's computer can run faster than all of the resources SHIELD has at its disposal.

He spends a lot of time thinking about Steve's final words before Bucky was pulled out of the room. He wonders what Steve felt like he had to do. He wishes he'd been able to do something more to help Steve get out. Too much of his life has been showing up a second too late, running off a second too soon. Never there when Steve really needed someone.

Without any information, any clues where to even start, Bucky's forced to kick up his heels and wait. He sifts through a lot of SHIELD files that Tony managed to get his hands on, information on the original experiments, the remnants of Erskine and Stark's notes. He reads files written in Peggy's hand, and later typed up in blocky typewriter font. He reads about the expedition to the Arctic, tracing some energy signature they thought would lead to old Hydra tech, and in some way it had. Except the plane had been practically useless after the crash and following years of freezing and refreezing.

Eventually he can't read anymore and takes the train to Coney Island just to get as far away from the Avengers Tower as possible. The cold ocean air out on the pier cuts into his skin and the salt burns his nose but he stands there, staring out at the ocean. It's the off season, everything behind him is closed up. It feels like a bad metaphor but he barely made it through tenth grade, it's easier to deal with what's in front of him.

Bucky's mind wanders, playing through everything that happened from when he saw Steve. Only three days ago. He remembers Steve's initial rage, the way he lashed out when he thought Bucky was an impostor. Steve knows him. Bucky has to cling to that, no matter what SHIELD has done to him before or now, Steve Rogers knows him.

It should make his movements predictable, Bucky knows Steve.

He turns around and for the first time takes in the closed attraction and boarded up boardwalk. Maybe it's why he's here of all places. They spent two summers working here, when Steve was fourteen and Bucky had just turned twelve. He'd joked about selling Steve to park as a freak, the healthiest sick boy alive. He remembers Steve laughing and saying that Bucky should, maybe he'd make more money that way.

The sight of someone else walking towards him makes him stand a little straighter and reach for the sidearm he always carries with him. It might be someone else but with how empty the pier is, he doubts it. Not even a few tourists wanting to at least see the area even if there's nothing to do.

The person quickly resolves into a small figure, hidden under loose slacks and a plain grey sweatshirt. Their face is out of view, Bucky doesn't even feel like he can begin to guess their gender.

"What did you have to do?" Bucky calls out, taking a chance.

-

There's no longer blood under his nails, he spent an hour scrubbing and scrubbing until his skin cracked and bled. He hides his hands now in a cheap pair of gloves. Doesn't want anyone to see his shame.

He came out to Coney Island on a whim, knowing Bucky was likely in the city but not sure how to approach him. He had counted on Coney Island being quiet, close enough that Steve would feel the pressure of New York City while still knowing he would have time. Time to prepare himself before judgment.

He never counted on Bucky being there. He stares at him, speechless, not even registering the question Bucky had asked.

"Steve?" Bucky takes a step forward, hunched slightly against the wind. He looks different out of uniform, smaller. Still barely more than the boy originally sent to war seventy years ago. The longer Steve stands silent the more nervous he looks, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. "Please tell me I didn't just harass a stranger."

He realizes his hand is shaking when he lifts it to push back his hood, letting Bucky see him. It feels like the ocean is there between them, the two of them suddenly here with no idea what to do. "What are you doing here?"

"I-" Bucky smiles, slow and shy and so familiar it hurts. He can't even pull up a specific memory but everything in the moment, the salty air and Bucky hunched up in a jacket that doesn't quite fit with a warm smile, it's all familiar. Steve breathes hard to get past the sudden lump in his throat. Something must show through in his face because Bucky suddenly straightens, face crinkling in worry. "Steve?" He takes a few steps forward, unconsciously breaking the ice between them.

Steve surges forward, gripping Bucky's jacket for support. He can't breathe, but it's not the asthma or panic attacks from when he was a boy. "There's no more blood on my hands," he whispers when he finally has enough breath. "Scrubbed it off."

Bucky gives a choked laugh, burying his face against Steve's head. He can feel each hot breath ruffling his hair. "Fuck, Steve. Where'd you go?"

"Arlington." He feels safe whispering his secrets against Bucky's neck where no one can overhear or see his lips move. "They locked me in a box and I needed to see my name again."

"So you found your tombstone? Morbid."

"Fuck you, you've been."

Bucky's arms wrap tightly around him. "Yea. I've been. Where to now?"

He takes a stumbling step backwards, pushing Bucky away in his haste. Bucky hits the railing with a wince and Steve immediately shoves his hands deep in his pockets. "Go be Captain America, ok? I gotta-"

"Fuck that." He moves faster than Steve remembers, catching his arm and yanking him forward and Steve lets it happen. Lets their bodies press together through thick layers of clothes. "I'm not going to let you run off. I'm here, Steve. Whatever you have to do. I put on that uniform to protect you, that's all I ever wanted to do."

He bites back his initial protest that he doesn't need protection, hasn't needed it for a very long time, but it dies in his throat. He wants it. He almost doesn't remember how to want things, it feels like something that a boy like him was never allowed. Not as a poor immigrant's son and not as a soldier. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"As if you ever do."

He frowns, not giving into the teasing, letting it slip away into the growing familiarity. "I could hurt you."

"You always could," Bucky shrugs. "Lotsa ways to hurt a guy."

-

Bucky lies awake in the cheap hotel, Steve's quiet breathing beside him barely louder than the mice scurrying in the walls. "Maybe you shoulda just sold me to the circus," Steve murmurs, more awake than Bucky had realized. He stares down at him, curled up in a small ball in a way that has nothing to do with cold and everything to do with fear.

"Huh?"

Steve rolls onto his back, big blue eyes blinking up at him. "Or maybe the freakshow on Coney Island. Could be a tiny strong man now." He looks like he wants to smile but his face doesn't remember how.

Bucky smiles for both of them, sliding down in bed so he's lying next to him. "You right next door to the tattooed lady?"

"Exactly. Maybe one of those guys who swallow swords on the other side."

"You could sometimes show up as a human pincushion since you heal so fast."

They've both moved so they're facing each other, whispering like they're two children again conspiring behind the nuns' backs. Steve was always the more outward rebellious of them. His mother was a socialist, he didn't believe a single word the nuns said about God, would sit in the back row and doodle on his pants leg with a grease pencil. Bucky wonders if he remembers. Things seem to come and go in Steve, seem to depend on the nightmare he needs most to repress at the moment. His fingertips touch Bucky's lips, startling him back to the present. "SHIELD will find us," he whispers. "You should have sold me and disappeared, kept yourself safe."

"I'm not letting them get you."

"You might not be able to stop them." Steve sounds calm and even manages a small smile. “I’m a valuable asset.”

Bucky leans forward and he can hear Steve’s startled gasp. “You’re more than that.”

Steve’s smile falters, his whole body slumps as if he could disappear into the bed. “Not really. Not anymore.”

Bucky doesn’t know how to prove him wrong, part of him is scared that maybe Steve’s right. 

-

He didn’t dream while he was in the cell. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to dream when they start again. The first one is drenched in blood. He jerks awake, desperate to catch his breath and for what feels like hours he struggles to breathe normally.

The first night with Bucky, he sleeps through the night. It’s refreshing, he thinks he might be able to live like a normal person, like he used to.

The second night he’s woken up by Bucky fighting him. He realizes in horror his hand is around Bucky’s neck. He quickly throws himself off the bed, struggling to catch his breath. Bucky stays where he is, sprawled over the bed. Not looking at him.

Steve ducks into the bathroom, not able to look at Bucky. He could have killed the only person he has. He drops to his knees and dry heaves over the toilet. When it finally passes, he curls up tightly in the corner, head buried between his knees. He should go back to the cell, go back to being what the serum made him. The idea that he could exist out here, be normal after everything that’s happened to him and everything he’s done is a lie.

It’s where Bucky finds him later. The bruises are already obvious on his neck.

“I-”

“Shut up, Steve.” Bucky sits in front of him. “Listen, ok? I’m not walking out, I’m not going to abandon you to some SHIELD retraining bullshit.”

“You can’t protect me from the shit in my head,” Steve interrupts.

“No, but I can help you figure it out.” Steve finally looks at him. He recognizes the stubborn set of his jaw, the way his shoulders are squared, prepared for a fight. “Let me.”

“Where would we even start?”

-

It’s probably not Bucky’s best idea, but he knows he’s had worse. Steve hooks his fingers in Bucky's belt loops like a nervous child. They’re up on the 68th floor of Stark Tower, looking out over New York. The room is sparkling clean, more like a hotel room than an apartment.

“It’s not perfect, I don’t know how much you trust anyone named Stark, but SHIELD can’t get in,” Bucky explains, watching him out of the corner of his eye. Steve stares fixedly ahead.

“It’s incredible, Buck,” he finally breathes, leaning more into Bucky. “Scared I’ll break something.”

“Don’t worry, break what you want, Stark can buy a new one.” He slips his arm around Steve, holding him close. “Don’t lie to me, if you don’t like it we’ll get out. Find some place new, start over.”

Steve seems to think it over for awhile. “You’re here.”

Bucky lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

-

Steve dreams of ice as grey as concrete. He dreams of watching it crack and seeing himself underneath. His dreams don’t make sense to him and he often forces himself awake, always expecting solid grey walls when he opens his eyes.

Instead it’s Bucky, usually still in bed or somewhere close by. This morning he’s not and Steve wanders through the apartment feeling vaguely disoriented.

He moves on autopilot when he hears the phone ring, though the person on the other end doesn’t wait for him to say anything. Their message is clear and concise, leaving Steve little room for maneuvering. His best option is to grab his gun and go. He pauses at the door, at the last minute grabbing Bucky’s leather jacket, but takes nothing else.

Each step he takes feels more solid and steady, he has a mission now. Something to ground him in reality instead of fractured dreams.

He twists the orders around and around in his head, figuring out what is wanted from him but this time he thinks about what he wants as well.

The orders given were simple. Take out the target, get out, leave no evidence. The voice told him he was the only one for the job, the only agent who could get there in time. Steve doubts it, but he has a deeper fear that if he doesn’t go, Bucky will be hurt.

He pulls out a phone while he’s setting up his rifle, setting it on speaker so he can multitask.

“Hiccup for lunch plans,” he says when Bucky finally answers. “Got called away.”

“You- fuck.”

He takes aim through the rifle’s sights. “But I think I’ve found a way to deal with it. See you later.”

“Steve!”

He ends the call. He remembers Hydra’s salute in sharp resolution, even though other memories might be faded and lost. He remembers their awful motto: _cut off one head-_

While Hydra’s obvious about it, it's how any secretive organization works. Always ready with new blood to be indoctrinated. Steve remembers reading about Hercules as a boy, curling up with books of mythologies, reading about gods and how alive they were. He remembers the story of another Hydra.

He takes aim not at Fury, because another can always rise to his position, he aims higher than that. He needs to cauterize the wound, to take a head and ensure it will leave a lifeless stump behind.

The target they wanted him to go after was a young Chinese official, likely with unsavory ties, maybe in human trafficking or drugs. He doesn’t know, doesn’t care, that’s not the man in his gun sights.

-

Bucky looks at Steve, sitting cross legged on the floor, his rifle laid out in pieces.

“I want it gone,” Steve says, staring down at his hands. Bucky doesn’t ask what he sees there, but he thinks he knows.

“How gone?”

“Gone. Please.” He looks up at Bucky, radiating desperation and Bucky moves without thinking. The gun parts are swept aside as he kneels in front of Steve, cupping his face to hold him still for a kiss. A choked noise escapes Steve, seems to echo between them. His hands cling to Bucky’s arms and together they fall backwards to the floor. They end up wrapped around each other, Bucky on his back and Steve clinging to him. “I want to be a good man,” he whispers, voice cracking.

“You are, Steve.” He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, hating himself a little bit for the way it feels like a lie. But this is what he never tells people when they ask why he put on the uniform, let himself be turned into a target. It’s always easiest to simply say he knew he needed to be a distraction. “The fact you even know what being good means proves it.”

Bucky knows he put on that uniform because it would keep him close to Steve, would let him look out for him during the worst. Steve Rogers is a good man, so when pushed too far all he could do was shatter and Bucky had to be there to help him bend.

“I killed a man today. Chose to,” Steve says, his grip on Bucky loosening.

“Because you could or because he was doing bad things?”

“Not that black and white.” He sighs softly, the burst of hot air on his skin makes Bucky shiver. “The world is very grey.”

Bucky runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, it used to be thin and weak back before the serum, Bucky was always scared it would fall out if he pulled too hard. It’s the only visible change, though no one else knows that anymore. “Sometimes it has to be.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, to the point he starts to assume the conversation is over. He doesn’t want to move and disturb the moment, though, so they stay there, stretched out on the carpet. Bucky keeps his arms around Steve. Even knowing that he isn’t sickly or fragile anymore, he still feels that way pressed against him. All slender bones pressing against thin skin. Now it hides the strength the serum gave him, makes it easy to underestimate what he can do.

“He was a bad man,” Steve finally answers. “We’re safer now.”

“That’s all I need to know.”

**Author's Note:**

> The continued epics of Steve being turned into an assassin as encouraged by beardsley


End file.
